Category: The Moosilauke Letters

my own gardenPittsburghSummer  1993 Carol said, “Put a dish of beer in the garden.  It will attract the slugs and keep them from eating our vegetables.”  She even gave me a couple of attractive ceramic bowls. After getting over the initial shock of feeding beer to anything non-human, and well aware that slugs have bad… Continue reading Slugs

ScarboroughMaineAugust  2012 Soon we make a stop at a standard looking confectionary store next to the Cornerstone Baptist Church and across the highway from the gas station.  Among the great assortment of chocolates and moose-themed tchotchkes — we’re in Maine, moose country — is Lenny, the featured attraction.  Lenny is a moose, a 1700-pound moose. … Continue reading Lenny

It’s unlikely that anyone will allow you the use of the word flink when you are playing Scrabble.  Lisa’s parents, both particularly adept at the game, grunted and bewailed at me when I tried.  Mom wears a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “SCRABBLE QUEEN” so I know that when I chose to create “flink” on… Continue reading Flink

on the highway to North CarolinaJune  2015 It’s a seven-hour drive.  I stop at what we used to call a comfort station.  Now they are service plazas.  Anyway, y’know, I have to pee.  In many places, when you pull off the interstate onto a two-lane back road, you have suddenly gone back in time.  I… Continue reading Rubbers

Frick ParkPittsburghJuly  2005 I’m wiggling my way through the now vertical branches of a downed tree.  Listen to that racket!  I look up and there’s a flock of crows, each one flying sideways in the wind, cawing their stories to anyone who will listen. I catch a glimpse just ahead, something jumping sideways from a… Continue reading Flying Squirrel?

Quebec Run Wild AreaPennsylvaniaMay  1996 Hiking through the lowlands of the Quebec Run Wild Area in southwestern Pennsylvania, I am transported to another time.  Or maybe it is the other guys. Hiking south on Mill Run Trail, I sense some goings-on off to my left.  What-ho?  A dozen or more people, dressed in standard garb… Continue reading Anachronism

Big Bend National ParkTexasNovember  2015 We’re in Big Bend National Park, getting away from it all, as they say. When they say, “getting away from it all,” they usually mean getting away from it some, the stuff we don’t like or don’t want.  That’s what we want to get away from.  For so many it… Continue reading Lion Touches

Myakka River State ParkFloridaFebruary  2002 Reminds me of the time I was backpacking in the Myakka River State Park on the Gulf coast of Florida.  Florida, as you may know, is flat.  The swamps where we hiked were nothing like the rolling forests of the northeast or the mountainous hikes we have done in New… Continue reading Waterlogged

Crowders Mountain State ParkKings MountainNorth CarolinaJuly  2018 they’re in here It comes up in a random discussion as we hike to the top of Kings Mountain in North Carolina.  What’s the difference between carpenter bees and bumblebees?  It is a warm afternoon and we have our sampling of both. Both carpenter bees and bumblebees are… Continue reading Bees and Bees

Savage River TrailMarylandJuly  1999 On our hike to camp the first night, we encounter swarming bees.  Not too many, but not too many is too many. We are a group of backpackers on the Savage River State Forest in Maryland.  Climbing a hill, single file, our lead hiker must’ve stirred a nest of bees because… Continue reading Bees